Quinn's education plan not so dire

Once again we are being threatened by our own supposed representatives in government. If we refuse their proposed tax increases, they say, they will irreparably damage our children by making draconian education budget cuts.

Most recently we've heard this from Gov. Quinn, who makes it sound as if the $1.2 billion in cuts he's proposing for 2011 would put our kids out on the streets begging for change.

What Quinn won't tell you is that in 2009 the Illinois legislature, in the midst of our financial calamity and with Quinn's assistance, pushed through a staggering education budget increase for 2010: $1.3 billion, a 14-percent jump over 2009, which is enormous in both relative and absolute terms.

So Quinn's threatened $1.2 billion reduction next year would not even fully reverse the unprecedented increase we had this year. According to the ISBE's own numbers, Quinn's 2011 "dire consequences" budget is actually $70 million more than our 2009 budget.

The only catastrophe here is our legislature's utterly irresponsible and unsustainable 2009/10 education spending increase, which incidentally followed several previous years of unsustainable annual 5 percent increases. I don't know of anyone in either my personal life or in private business who was foolish enough to undertake such spending this year. Only in government do we find people who are not only that foolish, but arrogant enough to demand that we all continue supporting such policies.

Dave Ziffer

Batavia